Ralph's Party (17 page)

She was practicaly kneading the already smooth soil now, her face reddening slightly.

Ralph laughed, hard and loud.

'"An airhead gigolo!!" God that's funny. I've never thought about it like that before, but I think you're right! I think that's exactly how she sees me. A gigolo!'

'No, realy, Ralph, I'm being serious. There's a desperate shortage of nice blokes around in this world and you're wasting yourself on Claudia. Believe me, there's thousands of girls out there, nice girls, who would just love to go out with a guy like you. And if you had a nice girlfriend you'd spend less time bloody worrying about what you were going to do wrong next, and being inadequate and not good enough for some souped-up Sloane, and more time doing what you're good at. Painting. Realy. I mean it,' she finished, closing the door of the airing cupboard and heading for the kitchen.

Ralph folowed closely behind, not wanting to miss a sylable. 'Girls like that make me so angry - they give other girls a bad reputation.

Dump her and start painting, Ralph. Please.'

Oh, blimey. This was getting a bit heavy now. 'Can I just try the painting bit first and then see if I stil need to dump Claudia afterwards?'

She punched him playfuly. 'God - can't live without the sex, can you!'

'I'm not going to deny it, I'm a voracious animal,' he smiled, leaning backwards against the work surface.

'Wel, I wouldn't want you to do al this just because I say so,' Jem said, replacing the water-spray under the sink, 'but if you thought you were up to it you shou!4 definitely give it a bash, just one day at a time — see

how you feel. That's always the way in life: the longer you leave things, the harder they are to do...' She trailed off. 'Do it, Ralph, go tomorrow. Get up early, get to your studio and see what happens.

Maybe you won't paint anything, maybe you'l just come straight back again, but at least you'l have got out of this cycle of just staying at home al day doing nothing — eh?' She was standing in front of him, looking up at him through her eyelashes, a stern but amiable expression on her face which stopped Ralph from feeling that he was being pressurized and more like he was being cared for, warm and nice inside. It had been a long time since he'd felt that way.

'OK,' he said, feigning defeat under duress, 'OK. Just one thing, though — what exactly do you mean by "early"?'

'Oooh, no point being half-hearted about this. Seven o'clock?'

'No way! Eight,' he countered.

'Al right. Seven-thirty and no arguing!'

'OK, but that stinks, it realy does. Even you don't have to wake up that early.'

Jem smiled. 'You'l feel good about it, I promise. You'l feel happier with yourself.'

And then that al too familiar moment arrived — the depressing sound of Smith's key in the lock, the twinge of pain in Ralph's heart as Jem's face lit up like the woman's in the Terry's Al Gold advert, and she was gone, gone from him, and into Smith's arms.

But she was his again now, for a few delicious moments, before Smith got up; she was in the kitchen cooking him breakfast - she'd never cooked Smith breakfast - and

she was wearing that teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy T-shirt. He rushed his shower, not wanting to miss a moment, dressed quickly but thoughtfuly in his cleanest clothes, splashed on a bit of designer aftershave (a present from an ex), fluffed up his hair and made his entrance.

Jem was coaxing the last few baked beans from the bottom of the can. 'I always feel mean if I leave a few stray ones,' she said, 'like they'l feel rejected or something.' She flicked on the gas ring and gave the beans a quick stir. 'Could you handle laying the table?' she asked. 'I'm just getting to the brain-to-hand co-ordination bit.'

She had put an apron on over the T-shirt, tied in a bow at the back, forcing the precarious garment a little higher up her legs but stil...

stil just not quite high enough. Maybe if she had to reach for something from one of the cupboards higher up, like ... the ketchup!

'Jem, would you mind passing me the ketchup? It's in that cupboard just over your head.'

He watched with bated breath; Smith's T-shirt had been clinging stubbornly to the back of Jem's thighs al morning like a prudish nanny, but now it was time. There was no way its resolute spirit could survive the impact of reaching for the ketchup.

Jem raised herself on to tiptoes, her back started to stretch, her arm left its side to begin the journey to the cupboard, the T-shirt moved a milimetre, two milimetres, three milimetres, and there it was!

Almost. Oh, God, just another milimetre ... Ralph was frozen to the spot with painful anticipation... Just another milimetre ... Shit! Shit!!

Jem's free hand suddenly grabbed the hem of the hateful T-shirt and puled it down staunchly over her thighs as she completed the stretch and grabbed the bottle. Ralph couldn't believe it.

'There you go.' She handed him the bottle, seeminglj unaware of his intense disappointment and frustration

Let's face it, he thought, I was" not meant to see her bottom, it's not going to happen, forget about it. But, dear God, he wanted to see her bottom. If it was anything like her silken thighs he absolutely had to see it.

'Sorry, Jem. Mustard?' He gestured at the same cupboard with his eyes.

She tutted good-naturedly and reached for the cupboard again. The mustard was further back in the cup board and she had to stretch that little bit more, using her spare hand to steady herself on the work surface. Ralph stopped and stared again: one milimetre ...

two milimetres ... three, four, five - Jesus! There it was! Six, seven

... his mouth was dry, his eyes bulging ... oh, sweet Jesus ... the most beautiful, edible, luscious little bundle of bottom, pale and smooth and... bottomy ... and, oh God, want to bite it want to bite it...

'I hope you're not looking at my bottom, Ralph McLeary!' laughed Jem, turning around.

Ralph spluttered. 'What? Me?'

'Yes, you. Here's your mustard.'

Ralph reached out for it with trembling hands, trying to look unfazed and innocent, turning too soon and missing the jar entirely. It dropped to the floor and, quite contradictory to Ralph's expectation of what would happen if you dropped a jar of mustard on to a linoleum-covered floor, it smashed into several pieces, depositing a splat of dirty yelow paste al over Jem's bare feet.

'Oh, God, Jem, I'm so sorry.' He rushed for the kitchen rol and puled far too much off, bundling up the mass of paper and soaking it under the tap. 'I'l wipe it off for you. I'm so sorry.'

He got down on his knees at Jem's feet and began to dab at the mustard. 'There,' he said, 'it's coming off.'

'Of course it's coming off,' said Jem. 'It's mustard, not creosote!'

Ralph held her ankle tenderly as he wiped her tiny white feet.

There,' he said, letting his hand slide a little further up her calf, his whole body stiff with the excitement of being so close to the hem of her T-shirt, his face inches from her naked groin, his hands encasing her legs and her feet, the mustard suddenly an erotic lubricant; he would quite happily have licked it off her.

'There. Almost done.'

He tore a single sheet off the rol and dried her feet with it, delicately, moving the paper in between her toes with his finger, his other hand stil moving slowly further up her leg, almost behind her knee now. He was disappointed to realize that the job was finished; al the mustard was gone. He patted her leg and got slowly off his haunches, leaning his body in a little bit as he rose, keeping his nose close to her body, breathing her in deeply. Suddenly his eye was caught by a couple of smal yelow specks on her legs.

'Oh,' he said, breathlessly, 'there's a bit more.'

He put his finger back in the paper and brushed at the splashes, wobbling slightly on his tired knees and grabbing the top of her leg quickly to keep himself steady. Warm, soft, lovely, lovely legs. She didn't flinch at al, just stood stil, looking down at him with a smal smile on her face.

'You're very thorough,' she said.

'Al gone,' he said nervously, slowly, very slowly getting to his feet, his nose almost brushing against the protrusion of her breasts through the T-shirt. He was

standing perilously close to her, towering over her, his heart beating so hard he could hear it in his ears.

She didn't move. Thank you,' she said.

He didn't move. 'My pleasure,' he said.

'No mustard for your sausages, then,' she said.

'I guess not,' he said.

Neither of them made any attempt to return to their respective chores. They stood where they were, for what seemed like eternity but was probably only a few seconds.

'Ralph?

'Jem.'

'Remember what I was saying yesterday — you know, about thinking that you deserved someone better, how I think you're quite special?'

Ralph hardly dared breathe. He felt like he was being kept upright only by the magnetic force that Jem was radiating, like if she was to walk away he would just colapse in a heap on the floor. Tes?' he replied expectantly. Oh, God. What was she going to say?!

'Wel, I just wanted to say... oh, shit!' Her face became panicked and she turned around abruptly, 'Shit — the bacon!' She puled the pan off the heat and opened the window over the sink.

The kitchen was thick with grey, caustic smoke, the bacon annihilated, shards of brittle black charcoal sitting shame-facedly in the pan.

'Oh, bolocks!' she exclaimed, laughing. 'No bacon either, I guess.'

'Never mind,' said Ralph, 'the beans are my favourite bit anyway.

Don't worry about it. Carry on. What you were saying, you know, just now ...'

'Oh, yes,' said Jem, 'That. I was just going to say ...'

A deafening wail obliterated her sentence, a high-pitched shriek emanating from somewhere in the flat.

'What the hel is that?' shouted Ralph over the din.

Smith was standing in the doorway in a green toweling dressing-gown, looking dazed, his hair al over the place. 'What's going on?'

he mumbled with annoyance. Why's the smoke alarm going off?'

'Oh, God. I burnt the bacon,' said Jem. 'Quick, Smith, blow on it

— blow on the alarm!'

The three of them congregated in the hal. Smith stood on a stool and blew on the alarm, fanning away the smal amount of smoke with his sleeve.

What were you making bacon for anyway?' he asked, bristling with irritation.

'For Ralph. For his breakfast,' she added unnecessarily.

Smith continued blowing and fanning until, eventualy, the unbearable siren died down.

'Jesus,' he said, getting off the stool and smoothing down his hair,

'Sorry, boyfriend!' said Jem, holding out her hand to him. 'At least we know it works, though.'

'Hmmmm,' replied Smith, gruffly. Wel, I suppose it was time to wake up anyway. Is there any breakfast for me?' he asked.

She smiled at him radiantly. 'Of course there is. Coming right up!'

Smith went for a shower then, and Ralph and Jem returned to the kitchen, Jem cracking eggs into a clean pan and turning the heat down under the now almost solidified beans.

'Jem,' said Ralph, putting out knives and forks, 'what you were saying... ?'

Til tel you later,' she said, and carried on with the breakfast.

Later. Later? It was another one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, TEN! hours until later. How could he possibly wait ten hours to hear what Jem had to say? That was impossible.

'Can you not just give me a little clue?' he said, wincing.

'Oh, God, Ralph! It's no big deal. I'l tel you later, OK?'

'OK,' he said, taking a seat at the table and watching her deftly co-ordinating the final stages of the greasily aromatic breakfast.

Smith came into the kitchen and breakfast was served.

'There you go — a proper working man's breakfast for proper working men,' said Jem, placing plates covered with eggs and sausages and beans and mushrooms and huge slabs of hand-sliced toast dripping with butter in front of them. 'Get stuck into that!'

'You are an angel, you're a saint, you're totaly and utterly perfect!

Thank you!' Under the circumstances Ralph felt able to blast Jem with superlatives and adoration without arousing discomfort or suspicion (the way to a man's heart and al that) and Jem took it as it sounded rather than as it was meant, smiling happily at her satisfied customer.

His overpowering need for satiation, stimulated by the morning's string of oddly sensuous encounters, was projected on to his food, and he ate like an animal, wolfing down the huge plate of food in moments. He wanted to go now anyway. Smith and Jem were playing

fs"

footsie under the table and smiling at each other over their breakfast plates. He took his plate to the dishwasher, packed a smal rucksack with a radio, some mini Mars Bars and a spare jumper, grabbed Smith's bike and helmet and set off down the road. Smith and Jem waved him off sweetly from the top of the basement steps, arms around each other, looking almost like proud parents. The notion made him feel queasy, quashing the whole air of ripe desire and eroticism that had inflamed his morning.

Ralph cycled quickly, taking the scenic route along the river, over Battersea Bridge, past the desirable residences of Cheyne Walk, down Grosvenor Road towards Milbank.

'"Where can I find a woman like that - like Jessie's girl..."' He sang loudly to himself as he pedaled, not caring who heard. He was bursting at the seams with pent-up everything - lust, jealousy, love, hurt, excitement, disappointment. This was unbearable, totaly unbearable. How could he go on like this, living under the same roof with the two of them, Jem not minding if he saw her bottom, teling him he was 'special' and then playing footsie with Smith as if he didn't exist? Was she doing it on purpose? Maybe she was a nymphomaniac after al. No. No. That wasn't right. There was more to it than that, much more. There was something between them, something ... spiritual. Oh, what rubbish. Spiritual! No, they got on, it was as simple as that. They got on very, very wel together, they had a 'special' relationship. If he didn't fancy her so much he could very wel have been friends with her - that would have been novel, a female friend. But that w;as impossible now, especialy after this morning, especialy after the pee in the toilet and the T-shirt and the mustard and everything.